


Snapshots

by Dee_Moyza



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24520936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dee_Moyza/pseuds/Dee_Moyza
Summary: At least once in every conversation with Rinoa, Laguna brought up Julia.  But the Julia he knew was not her mother; Laguna's Julia was nothing more than a snapshot, an idol, a sliver of a whole and vibrant woman.
Kudos: 11





	Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [fic prompt](https://deemoyza.tumblr.com/post/616239029087797248/send-a-number-or-2-and-a-pairing-and-ill-try) on Tumblr: "Chocolate" + "In the snow".

The heat from the small thermos in Rinoa's coat pocket seeped through the layers she wore and radiated through her body, inducing a cozy drowsiness despite the chill morning air. She walked through Balamb Garden's Quad, mildly disappointed that last night's snow had already been disturbed by eager students prior to their morning classes. Now that those classes were in session, however, a delightful stillness settled on the Quad, the snow muffling her footsteps to light crunches, the heavy clouds overhead swallowing any other sound.

She brushed some snow off a bench and sat down, fished her thermos from her pocket, and poured herself a cup of hot cocoa. She held the cup to her face and inhaled deeply, smiling as the scent of the cocoa mingled with the crisp winter air. It was a simple pleasure, of the kind she'd vowed to seek out now that she, and the world, were no longer in imminent danger. She let her thoughts drift and dance on the steam, idly wondering how she should spend the rest of her day, especially with Squall away on assignment. She was debating whether to request a day pass to Balamb Town or curl up with the latest novel she'd checked out from the library, when a man's shout jolted her from her reverie. She jumped, spilling her cocoa onto the snow, and watched it melt into an unappealing brown puddle.

"D-darn it!" The man shouted again, and Rinoa looked up to see him half-draped over the railing of the stairs leading down to the Quad. He cautiously picked his way down, and as he came closer, she recognized him as Laguna.

"Darn slippery steps!" he continued. "Doesn't Garden take care of these? Someone could get hurt!" He made it to the bottom, straightened, then put both hands on the small of his back and stretched. "Someone like _me_."

Rinoa shook the last drops of cocoa from her cup and screwed it back onto the thermos. "Good morning, Laguna," she said.

It was Laguna's turn to jump. He glanced around quickly, almost losing his footing again, then greeted her with a wide smile. "Oh, hey, Rinoa. Didn't see you there. Did you make it down the steps okay? Those things are dangerous!"

She smiled back. "I'm still in one piece. What are you doing here, so early?"

"Contract negotiations with Cid. Got a whole bunch of new projects we can use SeeD's help with."

"Like what?"

"Security for special functions, hunting down lunar creatures outside the city, stuff like that."

"I see." Projects that could easily be handled by the Estharian army. Laguna's motivations were as transparent as his contracts were vague. "Good luck with the contracts, but I'm afraid you may have wasted a trip."

"Wasted?"

"He's not here."

"Who?"

Rinoa exhaled slowly, a cloud forming in front of her face. "Squall was sent out of town on assignment. Nothing too dangerous. He should be back in a few days."

"Oh, yeah, Squall." Laguna rubbed the back of his head. "He's working hard; good for him. But I didn't come here just to see him, you know."

"Really? So, the president of Esthar always personally attends contract negotiations? I would've thought you had a staff for that."

"I do, and they're the ones going over the boring details with Cid right now. I'm here for moral support." He caught Rinoa's skeptical expression and shrugged. "Hey, these are really important contracts! Could shape the future of Esthar-Balamb relations. Anyway, though, since you brought him up … how _is_ Squall? Doin' all right?"

"Yes, he is, especially since he turned over command to Xu. It's been a weight off his shoulders."

"That's good to hear. Don't know why he'd give away a title like that, though!"

"He never really wanted it, to begin with." Rinoa moved aside to let Laguna sit down. "You two still have a _lot_ to learn about each other."

Laguna considered the bench for a moment, then crouched beside it instead, gathering a pile of snow in front of him. "Easier said than done, when one of us doesn't wanna talk." He reached the concrete below the snow, packed together the little mound he'd created, then reached out to scrape up some more. "How'd _you_ manage to get into his good graces? Maybe you could give me a few pointers."

"Oh, it was mostly just persistence." _And a bit of flirting,_ she added to herself, _and a whole lot of arguing …_ "We were also pretty much stuck together after he was assigned to Timber, so we didn't have much choice to _not_ talk to each other."

"I bet the fact that you're cute and outgoing didn't hurt, either." As he realized what he said, Laguna's ears turned red. "Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound creepy! It's just, you're a nice young lady, and I'm sure Squall finds you attract – um, nice – did I already say nice? – I mean, good … to … look at?"

Rinoa laughed. "It's okay, I understand. Thank you for the compliment."

"So gracious, too!" He glanced up at her, an absentminded smile on his face. "You remind me a lot of your mother."

There it was. At least once in every conversation with Rinoa, Laguna brought up Julia. Rinoa knew he meant no harm; he was likely grasping for common ground, for something to talk about. Still, the way he mentioned her, as if he had known her for years, instead of having been an awkward early fan of hers, chafed the tender spot in Rinoa's heart her mother had left behind. The Julia Laguna knew was not her mother; Laguna's Julia was nothing more than a snapshot, an idol, a sliver of a whole and vibrant woman.

Nevertheless, Rinoa tried to keep smiling. "Thank you," she said quietly.

"You have her eyes. Very expressive."

That was a lie. Or, at least, a misremembered detail. As much as she hated to admit it, Rinoa knew she had her father's eyes. Julia's eyes had been rounder than hers, but just as expressive as Laguna had mentioned. Rinoa made a noncommittal sound and shifted on the bench. She didn't want to leave Laguna talking to himself, but she desperately hoped he would move on to another subject.

No such luck.

"She told me the same thing about mine, back then. About bein' expressive, I mean. Awfully kind of her." He began forming another mound of snow on top of the previous one, evidently trying to build a snowman with the paltry accumulation in the Quad. "She was a great musician, and one heck of a writer!" He paused, crumbling a palmful of snow through his fingers. "Hey … did she, by any chance, tell you about her song?"

"Which one? She wrote a lot of songs." Rinoa's stomach tightened. She knew exactly which song Laguna was talking about.

"That one about eyes. 'Eyes on Me.' She ever tell you how she wrote it?"

"No," Rinoa said, her voice as sharp and frosty as the air. "I was too young to understand. Or care."

"Oh. Right."

"But I found out, soon enough. It was her signature song. Everybody talked about it, years after she was gone. They had questions. For Caraway. For _me._ "

"Questions?"

"About my family. About whether my parents got along. About first loves and old memories." She chewed her lip. "About my birthday."

"Your birthday?"

"Trying to build a timeline, I guess."

Laguna's brows furrowed. "Why would they–?"

"The story around the song is even more popular than the song itself. Naturally! It's romantic. It's _tragic._ " Rinoa gritted her teeth, screwing and unscrewing the cap on her thermos. "My mother's _true love_ went off to war and never came back. That's the line the tabloids used, and the record label never disputed it. Whatever sells, I guess."

"True love?" Laguna said the words slowly, as if weighing each on his tongue, then sighed. "I don't think I'd put it _that_ dramatically!"

"I'd hope not." Rinoa turned toward him and met his eyes, the very eyes her mother had immortalized, eyes that had seen their own share of tragedy, and she softened, looking away, fighting the sting of tears. "I don't know how she felt about you, and I really don't care. My parents loved each other. So much, that when my mother died, my fath – Caraway _changed._ It's like the light just went out in our home. He got so quiet, so angry. He got scared – this big, tough army general got _scared_ – over the dumbest things: whenever I wanted to take a walk on my own, or when I had to ride somewhere in a car, or if I even mentioned taking a bus, instead, he'd freak out. He became a total mess and unbearable to live with, and that's all because he really loved – _argh_!"

Rinoa buried her face in her hands and let out a muffled scream. Had she just _defended_ Caraway? What was wrong with her? She took a few shaky breaths to calm down and realized that she wasn't defending him, she was defending her mother. However Julia had felt about Laguna, she hadn't married Caraway as some sort of replacement. There had been actual affection between the two, affection that Rinoa had _felt_ , and recognized, despite being so young. Her home had been full of love, and happiness. And then …

"Rinoa." Laguna tapped her arm. "Rinoa, you okay?"

She nodded and lowered her hands to look at him, and started at what she saw. The man looking back at her wasn't the goofy, trendy president of Esthar, nor the "dandy old guy" of Selphie's dreams, or even the soldier whose eyes had captivated her mother. Instead, it was a man past his prime, a lifetime of outsized emotions etched into his features, a world of pain and regret in his eyes. A man who knew her mother once, if only in passing, and missed her, now, too. He looked so old, so vulnerable, at that moment, that Rinoa couldn't hold back the tears that blurred her vision. Her anger and frustration melted away, and she doubled over, sobbing quietly, barely registering the sound of her thermos landing in the snow.

Laguna patted her shoulder and apologized, over and over. "I didn't know you felt so bad," he said. "I'm sorry I brought her up."

"No," Rinoa sniffled, "I probably overreacted. It's just that, everything with my mother and her song and how Caraway got after she died … it's so complicated."

"Yeah. Things are complicated on my end, too. I guess I just wanted to talk about the past, keep the memories alive. I can't talk to Squall about Raine, 'cause he never knew her. And with Ellone, it depends on how she's feeling, too." He sighed. "It's like all my memories … are cursed."

"Don't say that. They make you happy, don't they?"

"Yeah, but they make other people sad." He returned to molding the snow. "I know I've messed up, big time, more than once. There are choices I made that I wish I could go back and undo, but … I never really understood how time compression worked." He gave a dry chuckle. "So, I gotta live with 'em. And I go back to the same old memories because they were happy times. They remind me my life hasn't all been one big muck-up."

Rinoa sniffled again and watched him work. A grown man playing in the snow. A man who, though beloved by many, was still very much alone with his grief and regret. A man who, at the moment, was having trouble building a tiny snowman. She slid off the bench and knelt beside him, scooping a handful of snow and shaping it, feeling the chill seep through her gloves, clearing her mind and calming her heart.

"Hey, you're pretty good at this," Laguna said, when she added her bit of snow to the snowman and continued to sculpt it.

"It's not that hard," she replied, grinning, "as long as you don't overthink it."

"Lemme guess – Squall?"

"Uh-huh."

"So, what does he do? Take measurements? Run calculations?"

"Pretty much." Rinoa giggled. "He won't even _try_ to build a snowman unless there's at least half a foot of accumulation. He calls it an exercise in futility, otherwise."

"Really? Wonder what he'd call _us_."

"Crazy." They shared a laugh, and Rinoa realized she felt lighter now than she had in a while. Her heart felt freer, having shed a burden she hadn't even known she was carrying. She and Laguna finished the snowman and leaned back to appraise their miniature masterpiece.

"Very nice!" Laguna gave it a pat on the head.

"I wish we had some decorations, to give it a face."

"Well, let's take a look." Laguna rummaged in his jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of odds and ends: coins, unbent paper clips, a wad of receipts, a tin of mints, and several pieces of foil-wrapped chocolates. "Hmm, if we take a couple mints for eyes …" He pressed them onto the snowman. "And one of these candies for a nose …" He placed it below the mints, but the foil quickly became slick and the candy slid off. "Darn it!"

"Maybe if we unwrap it first." Rinoa peeled off the foil and stuck the chocolate into the snow. "There! I think he looks quite dashing."

"Agreed." Laguna offered her a chocolate and popped one into his mouth, smiling down at the little snowman. He nearly choked on the candy moments later, when a snowball whizzed across the Quad and struck him in the back of the head.

"Snowball fight!" Selphie cried, bounding down the stairs, Irvine at her heels. "Sir Laguna's on my team! Irvy, you're with Rinnie!" She grabbed Laguna by the arm and dragged him to the other end of the Quad, where she proceeded to pound on his back until the candy dislodged from his throat.

"Well, Miss Heartilly," Irvine drawled, "looks like you and me got conscripted. You ready to whip Selphie's butt?"

"Do I have a choice?" Rinoa replied, slightly bewildered by the sudden flurry of activity. She glanced down at the snowman, and Irvine must have followed her gaze, because he stooped and carefully scooped it up, setting it down on the edge of the low wall.

"Irvy, c'mon," Selphie shouted. "Get the lead out!"

"I'm comin'," Irvine said. "Just preventing a civilian casualty."

As the snowball fight began in earnest, laughter cut through the cold air, dissipating any remaining tension, and pulling Rinoa fully back into the present.

Memories were complicated, and hearts even more so. No matter how much better than Laguna she felt she knew her mother, Rinoa realized that even her knowledge was woefully incomplete, a handful of snapshots to Laguna's one.

But perhaps that was all they needed, if it made them happy.

Perhaps that was all they needed, because these memories – these Julias – were _theirs_ , familiar and indelible, youthful and alive, tiny lights against the pall of death, burning brightly in their minds and in their hearts, for the rest of their lives.


End file.
